Christmas is the most photographed day of the year and produces some of the worst photographs of the year. This is not a coincidence - it is a lighting problem.
The whole occasion happens indoors, in December, after dark, under a combination of ceiling lights, fairy lights, candles and a television. Every one of those has a different colour temperature, and cameras cannot reconcile them. The result is the familiar Christmas photograph: orange faces, blown-out highlights, and a tree that has turned into a green smear.
Fix the light and everything else follows. Here are 20 ideas plus the specific lighting adjustments that make December photographs work.
Solve the lighting first
This section will improve your Christmas photographs more than the twenty ideas below it, so it goes first.
- Turn off the ceiling light. Overhead lighting produces shadows under the eyes and nose and is the main reason indoor party photographs look grim. One lamp at face height instead.
- Do not sit with the tree behind you. A lit tree behind you is a bright light source pointing at the camera, which makes it expose for the tree and underexpose you. Put the tree to one side.
- Shoot near a window during the day. December daylight is short but very soft. The two hours around noon on Christmas Day are the best light you will get, and almost nobody uses them.
- Pick one type of light and turn the others off. Mixed sources are what produce the orange-and-green cast. All warm or all neutral - either works, the mixture does not.
- Consider black and white. Monochrome removes the colour-temperature problem entirely. It is a legitimate answer to a genuinely difficult lighting situation, and Christmas suits it.
Seven ideas for Christmas Day
The jumper reveal
Frames one and two normal, frames three and four with the Christmas jumper on. The reveal is the joke and it works on everyone, including the people who claim to hate it.
Opening one present
Four frames of the same present being opened - anticipation, tearing, seeing it, reacting. The reaction frame is real, which is rare in Christmas photography.
The full table, before
Taken before anyone sits down, while the table is still perfect and nobody has spilled anything. Ten minutes later this scene does not exist.
The full table, after
The same frame, taken at the end. Wreckage, crackers, somebody asleep. Printed as a pair with the previous one, it is the whole day.
The paper crown, obviously
Everyone in cracker hats, four frames, increasingly deranged. The most reliable Christmas strip there is.
Three generations
Take it early, in daylight, before the afternoon disappears and people start leaving. Christmas is one of the few days this group assembles at all.
Someone asleep in the background
Four frames of everyone posing while one person is unconscious in an armchair behind. An annual tradition in most families whether or not it is documented.
Six ideas for the run-up
Decorating the tree
Four frames of the process rather than the finished result. The finished tree is photographed every year; the arguing about where the lights go is not.
The bad gingerbread house
Frames one through three: construction. Frame four: collapse. It always collapses.
Wrapping presents badly
Late at night, surrounded by paper, holding something that is clearly a book but is not going to look like one.
The Christmas market
Outdoors, at dusk, with market lights behind you. The one December setting where the background lighting works in your favour.
The office party
One strip with the colleagues you actually like. In three years you will have moved jobs and this will be the only photograph of them you own.
The first frost
Outdoors, cold, visible breath. Winter light is the softest of the year and it makes almost everyone look good.
Seven ideas for a Christmas spent apart
This is the hardest occasion to be away for, and the one where a shared photograph does the most work.
The shared strip
One booth link, two households, one strip with both of you on it. Taken while the meal is happening in one place and not yet in the other.
Same jumper, different countries
Matching jumpers, separate strips, placed side by side. Absurd and effective.
The tree exchange
Both take a strip in front of your own tree. Send them to each other. A small direct look into someone else's Christmas.
Opening their present, filmed in four frames
Take a strip while opening the gift they sent, and send it back within the hour. The nearest thing to watching someone open a present.
Midnight, wherever you are
Everyone takes a strip at their own midnight. Compiled, it is a Christmas that spans a whole day of time zones.
The empty chair, acknowledged
A strip with the family and a visible gap where somebody should be. Difficult, honest, and the sort of photograph people are glad exists later.
The call, captured
A strip taken during the video call, so the call leaves something behind. Calls end and leave nothing; this fixes that specific problem - which is the whole reasoning behind the shared booth.
Making it an annual thing
Christmas has the same structural advantage as a birthday: it happens on a fixed date with roughly the same people, every year, without you having to organise it.
- Same pose, same room, every year. Ideally the same spot in the house. Over a decade the room changes, the people change, and the sequence shows both.
- Everyone who came. One strip per year with whoever was present. This becomes a quiet record of a family over time, including the changes nobody plans for.
- The jumper archive. One strip a year in that year's jumper. Frivolous and unexpectedly good after five or six years.
- Before and after the meal. Two strips, same framing, several hours apart. Repeat annually.
The case for this kind of repetition is made properly in how to start a photo strip tradition.
Practical notes
- Take the group photograph early. Mid-afternoon at the latest. By evening people have left, fallen asleep or changed out of anything photographable.
- Set the booth up before people arrive. Something that appears mid-afternoon gets used far less than something that was already there.
- Involve the person who hates photographs by giving them a job - holding a prop, throwing something, being behind the camera in frame one. A task is easier to accept than a request to pose.
- Print a few before people leave. Handing a relative a physical photo strip on the way out is a very small thing that people remember.
- Do not photograph everything. Two or three strips across the day. A person documenting continuously is not present, and being present is the point.
Photographing a family that does not want to be photographed
Christmas is the one day of the year when the reluctant photograph-avoiders in a family are trapped in a room with everybody else, and every family has at least two of them. Pushing harder does not work. A few indirect approaches do.
Give them a job instead of a pose. Ask them to hold something, throw something, or press the button. People who dislike being photographed usually dislike being looked at, and a task removes that. The photograph still happens; it just is not about them standing still.
Photograph the activity, not the group. Four frames of someone carving, pouring, or wrestling with wrapping paper is a portrait that nobody has to agree to sit for.
Take it early, before the day is exhausting. Resistance rises steeply through the afternoon. A strip at eleven in the morning gets a yes far more often than the same request at six.
Let them see it. A great deal of photograph-avoidance is about not knowing what the result looks like. Showing someone the strip immediately, and offering to delete it, converts a surprising number of refusals.
Accept one frame. A strip where somebody is present in one frame and hiding behind a hand in the other three is a better record than no photograph at all - and it is usually the frame the family finds funniest a decade later.
The one worth taking
Of everything on this list, the pair that matters is the table before and the table after. Not because it is clever, but because it captures the actual shape of the day: an enormous amount of preparation, a few hours of chaos, and a room that looks completely different at the end.
It also requires no cooperation from anyone, which at Christmas is a significant practical advantage.
Turn off the ceiling light, put a lamp at face height, and take a couple of strips across the day. The booth runs in a browser on whatever device is nearest.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do Christmas photos always look bad?
Because the occasion happens indoors after dark under a mixture of ceiling lights, fairy lights, candles and a television, each with a different colour temperature. Cameras cannot reconcile them, which produces the familiar orange faces and blown-out highlights. Turning off the overhead light and using one lamp at face height fixes most of it.
Should I sit in front of the Christmas tree for photos?
No. A lit tree behind you is a bright light source pointing at the camera, so the camera exposes for the tree and underexposes your face. Put the tree to one side of the frame rather than directly behind you.
What are good Christmas photo booth ideas?
The strongest pairing is one strip of the table before anyone sits down and one of the same frame at the end of the day. Beyond that: four frames of a single present being opened, everyone in cracker hats, and a jumper reveal across the four frames.
How do you take Christmas photos with family who live far away?
A shared booth link puts both households on the same strip. Simpler alternatives include both taking a strip in front of your own trees and exchanging them, or everyone photographing themselves at their own local midnight so the compiled set spans the whole day of time zones.
When should you take the family Christmas photo?
Mid-afternoon at the latest, and ideally in daylight near a window. December daylight is short but very soft, and the two hours around noon are the best light of the day. By evening people have left, fallen asleep or changed out of anything photographable.
How can long-distance families take holiday photo strips together?
Set up a shared session in an online booth. Both households open the link on their devices, coordinate holiday outfits or props, and let the synchronized countdown snap dual-camera shots in real time. The resulting strip gives both families a shared keepsake to print for holiday cards.
Sources and further reading
- Colour temperature - The Kelvin scale behind warm and cool light, and why mixing two sources leaves a cast you cannot correct.
- Available light photography - Working with the light a room already has, which is the situation nearly every booth is in.